All this recent thread deleting and trollery and troll hunting and stuff

Please have a Trollbridge section! Trolls would only be able to post in there. Offensive posts deleted, of course.

Yes Mary I went to work - I know, I know - I hardly dare show my face here for shirking of mumsnet duties!

Come down harder on the troll hunters

Lock threads with an explaination

Make the explaination clearer

Stop the vicious troll hunters

It's hugely annoying to go out to work and come home to find threads have vanished and you've no idea what happened. Almost compells you to post a what happened thread. That's what I did yesterday - and it ended up deleted so today I'll just let it lie but if anything interesting did happen after 8.30 this morning I would appreciate a pm as I am highly curious.

hiding posters just makes for inconsistent threads.

ooooo have I been promoted - I'm Gwen - now don't start fighting or I'll ban the lof of ya

gwen? huh what am I supposed to doa bout it

I don't think a locked thread with an explanation (a consistent one - as pointed out in the post by Pixie a few posts onto this thread - it's the disparity in what information is given out that gets people talking as well) would create as many spin-offs as a deleted thread does.

Would be rather like the 1000 posts things that someone mentioned above - thread fills up (or is forced to be "full" by locking, and in most cases people leave it after that. There are exceptions to that rule - moudlies, daily mail all speared onto 2/3/4 1000+ threads - but most contentcious threads just died after they're locked (ie full).

IMO deleting + spin offs creates more bonus points for the troll (not only did they wind people up - but they're talked about for days afterwards - and whole threads such as this one are spawned because of it) than a locking and explanation would.

I'm hellish nosey - and would almost definitely start a "what happened to X thread" threa if I found one I'd been reading/posting on had vanished. I know I wouldn't if I could finished reading the thread to it's (forced) end and see why it was locked....

LOL at Gwen.

Is that GwenMN?

Also mn isn't a court of law. They font need absolute proof. It's a members only forum and they have the right to ban anyone they like.

If it walks like a duck and swims like a duck, as soon as it starts quacking you have the right to assume its a duck.

When someone is pulled up over and over for mistruths, or they deliberatly post controversialy all the time, if they are generally making the rest of the site feel annoyed/irritated/upset..whatever. just ban them.

No need to wait for a trial.

If the poster was genuine it has been shown how easy it is to get back on. They could learn from past mistakes and try again.

But gwen must start taking more affirmative action imo

Firstly, I don't see why people can't know who a troll is if they're a previously identified troll.

Secondly, I don't think that the threads should be deleted or even locked. The thread capasity is 1000 posts, on the whole, unless the outing happens at post 900 most people will have got past wanting to discuss it before it reaches the capasity stage.

If mn hq came on and announced that the op was a troll then people could express their and (although tbh how anyone failed to see that the thread yesterday was a troll is really beyond me), and they could discuss the in's and outs on the thread and people seeing it in active convos would come on and look at it and see what it was about, and eventually it would reach capasity and people would stop posting.

The problem with all troll threads being deleted is that even months down the line someone will make reference to one of them and someone will come on and say "oh, I didn't know dizzymare/sassysusan/pooh poster was a troll" and the whole thing gets re-hashed again but without any evidencial threads to back up the tellings and so it then goes around in circles again.

If the troll posts are in chat they eventually disappear anyway but by then the majority have lost interest.

I think its a great thing to have OTBT, and it should be used more. Threads that have trolls should be locked with an explanation and the relevant parts deleted, then moved to OTBT. All threads asking "what happened" or trying to rehash in any way should also be moved to OTBT. At least this way, the incident doesn't suck in half of MN, who would be happily oblivious to it all. Only those who are actually involved in some ways would still be re-hashing it, and this would be hidden from all the other MNers, so random rubberneckers don't just pile in.

Wouldn't MNHQ posting how they knew it was a troll merely advise prospective trolls how best to hide?

I agree that HQ should give a bit more info about the troll.

if they have enough to know that its a troll tehn tell us what you know.

It is anonymous, only a screen name. its nbot like there are confidentiality issues.

also the locked thread idea is a good one.

put a nice red message at the end saying why it is locked and then leave it for 7 days before deleting. that way anyone that was involved can see and catch up. no more posts mean no more arguing but also saves al the wheres the thread threads,.

yes - but MMe - if there's an explanation from MNHQ at the bottom of the locked thread then people won't need to rehash the old thread - or even ask - as it'll be there.

Spin off threads can be locked (or deleted _ as there's no point in asking - as the answer is there. I think people would get the hint after a while that there was no point in starting "what happened to x thread" - when the thread is still there to be read, and it's locked, and it has an explanation for locking on it.